People may experience virtual three-dimensional (“3D”) spaces (e.g., based on virtual scenes including virtual objects, real-world scenes including real-world objects, merged reality scenes including both virtual and real-world objects, etc.) for various reasons and in connection with various types of applications. For example, users of media player devices configured to present representations of virtual 3D spaces may experience virtual 3D spaces for entertainment purposes, educational purposes, long-distance communication purposes, vicarious experience/travel purposes, or in connection with various other purposes and/or applications.
Virtual reality is one example of an application where users experience virtual 3D spaces. Virtual reality media content may be used to immerse users (i.e., viewers of the virtual reality media content) into interactive virtual reality worlds that users may experience by directing their attention to any of a variety of things being presented in the immersive virtual reality world at the same time. For example, at any time during the presentation of the virtual reality media content, a user experiencing the virtual reality media content may look around the immersive virtual reality world in any direction, giving the user a sense that he or she is actually present in and experiencing the immersive virtual reality world from a particular location and perspective (e.g., angle, viewpoint, etc.) within the immersive virtual reality world.
In some examples, immersive virtual reality worlds may include both virtual elements and real-world elements. Such virtual 3D spaces may be referred to as merged reality scenes, and may provide various benefits to users such as, for example, allowing users to experience real-world elements (e.g., elements associated with a live event) augmented by virtual elements not present in the real world.
To provide users with maximum flexibility to experience merged reality scenes, conventional media player devices have typically received data representative of the merged reality scene (e.g., 3D models of virtual and real-world objects) prior to the time when the user experiences the merged reality scene. Unfortunately, a requirement to preload, rather than to stream, data may preclude or place significant limitations on certain types of experiences that may be provided to the user. For example, it would not be possible for data representative of live events that a user may wish to experience in real-time (e.g., live real-world sporting events, shared virtual reality events, etc.) to be received and preloaded prior to when the events begin.
Moreover, media player devices and/or other system components streaming the data may be tasked with processing burdens that cannot scale to present larger or more detailed merged reality scenes. For example, a significant amount of additional data (e.g., approximately twice as much data) may be needed to represent 3D models for a merged reality scene with, for example, ten objects, as compared to a merged reality scene with, for example, five objects. Thus, even if a provider system is capable of streaming 3D models for five objects to a media player device in real time, the provider system may be incapable of scaling up to streaming 3D models for ten objects, one hundred objects, or more, especially when real-world objects and virtual objects within the merged reality scene are interacting together.